Closing Unity Colleges would be victory for insurgents

The government’s action followed the horrendous killing the previous week of some sixty students of the Federal Government College at Buni Yadi, in Yobe Stat,e by suspected members of Boko Haram, eliciting widespread outrage and condemnation in the country and the international community.The three states have been under a state of emergency that President Goodluck […]

The government’s action followed the horrendous killing the previous week of some sixty students of the Federal Government College at Buni Yadi, in Yobe Stat,e by suspected members of Boko Haram, eliciting widespread outrage and condemnation in the country and the international community.
The three states have been under a state of emergency that President Goodluck Jonathan imposed last year for an initial six-month period in bid to contain the insurgency and curtail the bloodletting and destruction. It was renewed for a further three months when the soldiers deployed there fell short of accomplishing the mission.
It was not the first time that the insurgents would focus on such soft targets such as the college at Buni Yadi, and unleash mayhem.
In June last year, the insurgents attacked the state owned Government Secondary School, Damaturu, the Yobe State capital, killing eight students and one of their teachers. The following month, the insurgents struck at another state owned Government Secondary School at Mamudo, Yobe State, killing twenty nine students. Last September, their target was the College of Agriculture located in the Yobe State town of Gujba, where forty students were killed.
Despite the emergency measures, the creation of an army division, and the deployment of more soldiers to the region, the perpetrators of these killings appeared to be having free rein, riding, as many reports suggest and the accounts of the military authorities confirmed, in multiple-vehicle convoys and armed with heavy weapons across vast territories, virtually unchallenged. The insurgents have also attacked and sacked many towns and villages, leaving many dead and hundreds of public and private property destroyed.
It was not until last month’s Buni Yadi Unity College attack that the federal authorities made public any serious contemplation of closing down schools in the region.
Given the Boko Haram’s professed ideology that is rooted in their conviction that Western education is forbidden, hence the targeting of symbols of knowledge, any move to provide any inkling of approval would be unwise.
The federal government’s order to close the five Unity Schools in the region is pregnant with many meanings, least of which is the implicit admission that it is unable to provide safety, to say nothing of security, to the areas to which it deployed thousands of security personnel to provide it.
Admitting such failure in such a very low way like as shutting down schools would mean victory for the terrorists, meeting an ideological goal.
Surely, this may not be the message that the government intends to send by taking the action; but that is the effect.
The Yobe State Government got deserved praises last year when it refused to bow to the aim of the terrorists, particularly after the Gujba incident. It was a painful, perhaps costly stand to take, but the long-term impact of that decision cannot be wished away.  The terrorists were defeated on that score.
The Federal Government should not take the easy path of shutting down schools and leaving parents with the burden of securing admission places for their children that will be displaced if the decision is implemented.
Handing out a propaganda coup to the terrorists, instead of defeating their aims by providing security to the students, would have consequences for the country and for the government’s own war on the insurgency.
Now that there appears to be a more robust engagement of the insurgents by the security forces since the attack at Buni Yadi, it would be self-defeating if the government goes ahead with the ill-advised order.